MEN’S TENNIS | Yale builds momentum

The No. 56 men’s tennis team extended its winning streak to four in its last match against a nonconference rival before Ivy play next weekend.

On Saturday, the Bulldogs took on the St. John’s Redstorm (2–12, 0–1 Big East) in their third road trip of the spring semester, coming out of the match with a 5–2 win at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. Yale is now 14–3 in the regular season.

“This win gives us a lot of confidence because St. John’s is a tough and highly competitive team,” Jason Brown ’16 said. “We had to fight through a lot of singles matches, and our play this past weekend shows we can come from behind and stay in the match.”

This win for the Bulldogs marks their first victory on the road this season, and their 10th out of the last 11 matches this season. Uncharacteristically for the Bulldogs, they lost the doubles point in the first three matches of the day. St. John’s led the charge at the No. 3 position with an 8–2 by Hugo Morth and Mark Mozer over Yale’s Zach Dean ’13 and Matt Saiontz ’15.

The duo of Patrick Chase ’14 and John Huang ’13 retaliated at the No. 2 spot with an 8–5 win over Michael-John Every and Vasko Mladenov, the latter being the Redstorm’s No. 1 singles player as well. St. John’s was able to clinch the point with a tie-breaking win at No. 1 when Mike Lampa and Valentin Mihai took out the nationally ranked No. 74 veteran team of captain Daniel Hoffman ’13 and Marc Powers ’13.

“I was happy with how our team played this weekend,” Zach Krumholz ’15 said. “We were able to come back after losing a close double point and take five out of the six singles matches. I think our win over St. John’s bodes well for the Ivy League season.”

The Elis were able to come back and turn the match around later in the day in their singles performances. At No. 1 Huang fell in three tough sets to St. John’s Mladenov, who extended his winning streak to nine straight matches. But the Bulldogs went on to sweep the No. 2 through No. 6 positions. Powers played at No. 2 and came out on top with a win in three sets. Brown and Dean also won in three sets at the No. 5 and No. 6 positions, respectively. At No. 3, Hoffman earned the win in two sets 6–2, 6–4. The No. 4 player Martin Svenning ’16 followed suit, 7–6, 6–3.

“The win against St. John’s was great for momentum going into the Ivies,” Hoffman said. “It’s nice to win those out of conference matches, but the next seven matches will be some of the most important we play all season.”

The Elis will open up Ivy League play against the nationally ranked No. 52 Princeton Tigers and the unranked Penn Quakers next weekend at home at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center in New Haven.